I am a Christian, a retired teacher, a mother and a grandmother. I love to read and I love the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless otherwise specified ,all visual illustrations are from the YOU VERSION APP of the Bible.
All of us undergo a wilderness experience at some time in our lives. You know what that is like; it’s dry and you feel all alone. Think about Moses leading the Israelites through the wilderness and Jesus going to the wilderness to be tempted. In both cases, how did they survive? I think it was by total dependence on the Father, and that is what our wilderness experience should teach us too, if we are willing listeners.
Moses led the people in the wilderness, with the Lord leading the way to show them exactly where they should go. Moses was well acquainted with the voice of God as He spoke to him from the burning bush and called him to lead. Moses had already spent forty years in the wilderness as a shepherd, and I am sure that he was learning from God during his sojourn there. Part of the wilderness experience is learning to lean on God and not be so self-sufficient. We can’t follow if we don’t listen for the voice to lead us. We don’t have a cloud or a fire to guide us, but we have the Holy Spirit inside us, guiding us in the way we should go and reminding us of the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus’s wilderness experience was specifically for Him to be tested and He passed with flying colors, as they say. How? He spoke back the Word to Satan and then Satan left Him.
I don’t know that the Spirit leads us into the wilderness, but He might if that’s where God wants us to be for a season so that He can get our attention and speak to us clearly. Many of us, including me, need to learn the lessons that we can only learn in difficult experiences, things we call a “wilderness experience.” It takes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to look honestly at ourselves and our relationship with God as well as what our next step should be.
Our strength comes from the Lord and it is in the challenging parts of life that we learn to depend on Him and not on our own knowledge and abilities, things that God has gifted us with, by the way. We learn that He is the one who sustains us in the dry periods of our lives, giving us just what we need, just when we need it, and also just when we are open to really listen to Him.
I think we can all agree that wilderness experiences are not fun and entertaining. But they are necessary for growth and we all want to become mature Christians, fulfilling God’s purpose for us. If God is calling you to a wilderness, be ready to depend on Him and to wait with Him there until He leads you to the oasis. The wilderness is not where He will leave you; you are just passing through it on your journey to a closer walk with the Lord.
My husband constantly reminds me that I am a “detail person.” I notice things that others might not notice, like one thing out of place in a room full of things. He says I am a Type A personality and he is probably right. I think of it as modeling God because God pays attention to details. If you don’t believe me, read the description that He gave to Moses about how to prepare and set up the tabernacle.
Notice that word “exactly.” God had a plan and he trusts Moses to carry it out, exactly as He has shown him. God has a plan for each of us, too and we have to ask for directions daily about what we are to do that day to carry out His plan for us.
We are the Lord’s dwelling place here on earth, and just as He has exact plans for the tabernacle, He created each of us in a unique way and just the way He wants us to be. I used to question God’s wisdom in giving me defective lungs, one kidney and an extra rib. But I got over that a long time ago. What a blessing it is to be able to share with people that I didn’t even know I have a single kidney until I was in my 50’s. That single kidney has continued to do its job well, even though the doctors say I am in Stage 3 kidney failure. I go to see my nephrologist every few months (today is the day again!) who does lab work and encourages me to eat the foods my kidney will process and omit the foods that it can no longer handle. So, my diet is low sodium because of my stroke and low potassium and low nitrates because of my kidney. Do I miss not being able to have foods like potatoes and bananas and few carrots and salad mix? Honestly, not so much anymore. But when I first had to give them up, I was not a happy camper. Now, I am used to it. And I don’t think God made a mistake in creating me this way. It’s my “thorn in the flesh” that lets me be a better witness for Jesus. God is a God of details and the fact that I was born with one kidney was not a surprise to Him. When my kidney started not working as well, God didn’t say, “Really? That’s strange. I never expected that!” God knew that detail already and was prepared to bring me down this path of life, holding my hand and leading me the whole way, even during my whining phase.
I may not be 100% the way I would like to be, but I know that I am perfectly made in God’s eyes. Just as He told Moses how to make the tabernacle, God had a plan for how I would be made and it has been a good one for over seventy years. As I told my children, I am not leaving this earth until God tells me it’s time. He created me, established my number of days on the earth and my various health issues don’t change His plans for me.
God is not a mediocre Creator who halfway does His job and then sits back idly waiting for bad things to happen to what He created. Not at all! God pays attention to every detail and is an excellent and loving Creator. Much as I notice small details in rooms I have visited before, God notices every detail of our lives. He created each of us and called that creation. “Very good.” I want to use all of the time that He has given me on earth to glorify Him, giving Him praise for the wonderful work He did when He made me and the continued good work that He is doing daily in my soul as He reaches out to me daily and gives me His loving wisdom from His Word. May each of you remember to praise God today, thanking Him that you are His living tabernacle!
The last few days have been long and sad. First, there was the plane crash in D.C. Investigations are ongoing, but it is enough for me to know that there were almost seventy people who died within minutes of the collision between the plane and the helicopter. You have probably seen the horrifying photos and videos for yourself.
I was still struggling with the “why” for the first tragedy when another tragedy happened. The second aircraft that went down over Philadelphia was a medical transport, carrying a young girl who had been sponsored by the Shriners to have her procedure in the U.S. The plane was taking her and her adult companion, two doctors and two pilots back to Mexico. The news reports said that the hospital had given her a “going home” party. Once I heard of the second crash last night, I was devastated, but I knew that my heart was not aching as much as those involved, both in the plane and on the ground.
So, how do we as Christians react to such tragedy? I will tell you first what I think we should not do. We don’t need to be pointing fingers at air traffic controllers, their training or their abilities. I am confident that they were doing the best they could. Nor do we need to start blaming DEI or the previous administration. Wherever the fault lies, there are a lot of innocent people who died and they need hope, not shaming and finger wagging.
We can offer that hope to them in the name of Jesus Christ. He came to give hope and comfort. I don’t think we will ever really understand why such tragedies occur. The FAA and the DOD may issue statements with what they think is the answer, but the real answer is we don’t know. What I do know is that God was waiting for these victims who knew Him with open arms and reassurance of His love. They went from death to His presence as long as they knew Him as their Lord and Savior.
The urgency to tell others about Jesus and the free gift of salvation that He offers has been stirring in me for a while. These tragedies brought this need to the forefront. How many did not know the Lord? How many went to be with Him while others will never see His face? Those thoughts kept me awake and desperate to tell others about the Lord. I pray that each person on each flight had someone in their lives who cared enough to tell them about Jesus and the eternity with Him that could be theirs.
My reaction to the tragedies is a burning desire within me to not allow others to leave this earth without the opportunity to know grace, mercy and forgiveness. I could care less about the politics and who is blaming whom. Souls are worth more than bitterness and opportunities to point to the other guy. Shame on anyone who takes advantage of these tragedies to push their own agenda! And bless those who see this sadness as an opportunity to stand in the gap and go and tell.
In the meantime, while I wait for God to tell me what to say and to whom, I am waiting. Just as the Israelites did not move until God led them, I am not speaking or posting online or condemning anyone. Rather, I am waiting for God to give me the words to speak and to point me to whomever needs to hear them. I am waiting and listening for God to give me directions even as I pray for the families of those who died. Please join me in praying for their comfort, peace in their hearts and provision for each of them spiritually, physically and mentally.
Have you ever had to prepare a meal for a larger than usual group of people and you had no idea how much food you would need or how you would afford it all? We invite family over for holiday meals and with our retirement income, we have to plan in advance the groceries we will need and get them as we can, leading up to the event. Then, when the time of celebration arrives, we can relax because there is always more than enough. Like Jesus feeding the 5000, we usually have food left over and send it home with our guests.
When Moses was following God’s command to get the tabernacle ready, he called for the people to bring offerings. They brought so much that he had to tell them to stop bringing their gifts.
See that phrase? “More than enough.” God doesn’t use people to bring just what we need; rather, His provision is always abundant, much like the abundant life that Jesus promised us.
Jesus’s sacrifice was for the Jewish people, but we Gentiles were always right there in God’s thoughts and He had already planned to provide the sacrifice for us, too. Jesus died for all, and His sacrifice is more than enough to carry us through this life and into our eternal one with Him. Unlike me who sometimes gets weary of doing things for others and end up doing a halfway, unsatisfactory job preparing for company to come over, Jesus gave His all, and it was all that was needed to save THE WHOLE WORLD from our sins. When I consider His great sacrifice and suffering, I am more than willing to give so that others can hear and share the gospel. God has been blessing the world He created since the beginning of time, and He always gives more than enough.
If you think about your life and how God has been leading you, what comes to mind? For me, I have a lot of questions about why God led me to certain places instead of others. For example, we had orders to go to Japan. The children were excited, my husband was anxious to get there and start his new responsibilities, and I was resigned about moving again but looking forward to a new adventure in a foreign land. We had sold our car, packed up all of our belongings and the military movers had come and put everything into large crates to be shipped overseas. Then, the memo came from command; my husband and children could go to Japan but I was not allowed to accompany them because of my health issues. The closest hospital to our new base was too far away for them to risk sending me there. So, prayer and discussions followed, and my husband reluctantly turned down the orders. That is how we ended up in northern Maine. Let me tell you that this southern girl thought I had died and gone to hell and it was a cold and barren place.
On the way to Limestone AFB, I was driving one car with my daughter and my husband was leading us in the front car with our sons. He says jokingly that you can see the brake skid marks on the pavement all the way from the south up Interstate 95. To say that I was an unwilling participant in this little adventure is putting in mildly. The highway ended an hour from the base, so on our journey into what I considered a wilderness of trees and cemeteries (honestly, that was the view for miles and miles), we had to stop for gas. When my husband came to my car window to ask how I was doing, I remember his asking me how I was doing. He had a big smile on his face, and I burst into tears. Having passed numerous cemeteries, I sobbed,”The only reason people come here is to die!” He talked quietly to me, comforting me and letting me know that God was with us.
When we arrived at our duty location, it was the beginning of September, and it started to snow. I got the kids settled into their new schools, worked every day on unpacking boxes and making our base housing as familiar to the children as possible, with all of their favorite pictures in their rooms. As I did this, I kept looking out the window and it kept snowing. After settling in, I started looking for a teaching job. Certified in Spanish and history, I was not too hopeful that I would find a job in the one high school in Aroostook County, but when I applied, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the one Spanish teacher for the county was retiring at the end of the year, so I applied. And I ended up getting the job.
My next obstacle was driving in the snow. I am from the south, and where I came from, there is no school when it snows. An inch? No buses would run. In Maine, we had almost two hundred inches of snow the first winter I lived there. In fact, I could reach out our second story window and touch snow, not drifted snow, but snow that had freshly fallen and that’s how high it reached. The children were adjusting well, with gym classes featuring skiing and snowmobiling, and they were loving it. I, on the other hand, was terrified to drive in it. So, I prayed and asked God to help me be safe and not hurt me or anyone else. My husband’s one piece of advice was not to touch the brake. Knowing that I had signed a contract and would be teaching in the fall, I started to venture off the base and drive a little. One bright sunny day, I went to the Ames Department Store. It was about half an hour away, I didn’t see any chance of snow even though it was March, so I was confident that the roads would be plowed and safe. I had finished my errands in town and started to get into my car when the snowflakes started falling. The March snow in Maine was often a wet snow, heavy and very slick. Before I could get halfway home, the roads were covered and I was a nervous wreck. I remember heading downhill on the road and the car started to slide. I had no idea what to do, but I remembered my husband’s admonition not to touch the brake. So, I took my foot off the pedals, my hands off the steering wheel and prayed, “God, you need to take over because I have no idea what to do.” Guess what? I slid nicely to the side of the road into a snow drift and the car stopped. After I cried and thanked God, I backed up very slowly and went home very slowly praying the whole way, aware that I was a menace to others who knew what they were doing.
Was my Maine adventure a pleasant experience? Not at all! But I made good friends there with other base wives, used my crocheting skills that the wives at the Arkansas base had taught me, and I learned to lean into God. He kept providing for me in situations that seemed hopeless. One of our neighbors, a nice older lady named JoAnn, was teaching math at the same school where I taught. She offered to drive me to school every day so I didn’t have to be so stressed about winter driving. Another new friend named Joyce invited me to her house at least weekly just to get out and have coffee or tea. We even went to Canada together one weekend. (Canada was actually the closest place to shop for decent clothes for our children.)
Why am I telling you all of this? Just to let you know that I learned a lot about myself and my relationship with God from my “wilderness” experience in Maine. God did not take me immediately to the place I wanted to go (South Carolina), but I did get there eventually. Maine was a long way from home, but the four years I spent there were a school for the rest of my time as a military wife. I learned to use resources that the base provided, not to be afraid to tell people that I needed help and to always have an attitude of prayer because I never knew when the snow might start falling again.
Moses did not get to go right to the Promised Land using the shortest route possible. Instead, he went through the wilderness. And when the Israelites disobeyed and rebelled, they ended up spending forty years there, even though the journey was really only a few weeks. Paul did not go straight to Rome. Instead, he was taken prisoner, shipwrecked and finally ended up where he wanted to be all along. We have a lot of epistles penned by Paul that tell us about his experiences getting there.
My point is that we don’t know what God’s plan for us is, but He does. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, but He does. In trusting God in the wilderness, I have found that He is with me in the oases, too. He walks with me on the mountaintops and in the valleys. I’m not fond of the valley experiences, but I have learned to depend more on my Father in heaven and know that whatever I am going through will not be forever. He may be taking me the long way, but I can trust that He is always leading me in the right direction, home to Him.
I am writing this blog today to encourage my readers to hold up authors by sending them notes or emails just to let them know you are thinking about them. Writing a book is a lonely profession with a lot of bumps along the way and Vickie Escalante, an online friend, recognized that authors need encouragement to get over their hurdles. Thus “The Moses Project” came to be, named for Aaron and Hur who held up Moses’s arms so that the Israelites would be victorious against their enemies.
It’s really an easy form to complete. Once it’s done, Vickie E. will contact you and let you know the name and contact information for the author you will encourage. This is not a big time commitment, nor is it expensive. I contacted my author a couple of times via email, she wrote me back with some basic information about herself and then I contacted her again about a week and a half later to check on her and let her know I am praying for her. Vickie has suggestions in the welcome e-mail that she will send you. I hope some of you will consider joining this group of encouragers. I depend on authors and their books to help me through some tough days, so I figure I can give back a little.
There is also a link for authors to sign up if they want someone to stand alongside them and be their cheerleader. Here is that link for the authors out there:
One more favor before I go…can you share this with other readers who might want to help an author in their ministry to us? Thank you for considering my requests and being willing to bless an author who may just need a little encouragement right now.
Not only did Jochabed come up with a plan to save Moses from the evil intentions of the king, but she also got the opportunity to be his nurse for Pharoah’s daughter. I know that when I was feeding my infants, I did talk to them, pray for them and dream dreams with them of what their future would be like. It’s hard not to imagine that Jochabed did likewise, especially knowing that her time with her son was limited and would end when he was weaned. It’s amazing to me that Moses was put into the water, saved from the water by Pharoah’s daughter and then ended up leading the entire Israelite nation across water that God parted. What a big part that water played in his life! But his mother who had the God-inspired idea to save his life played the biggest role of all. Without Jochabed, there would have been no Moses, or at least not the one we know about from the Scriptures.
God uses His people to work out His plan but we have to be listening in order to hear what He is telling us to do. In our busy lives, we need to set aside time to just listen and be aware that God has a plan–for the world and for us individually, too. Sometimes we go with the plan and sometimes we fight it, but whatever we do, God still has a plan and we need to trust Him.
I don’t think that I have ever considered Moses a mentor to Joshua because I did not see before the truths pointed out in this devotional. In order to be a good mentor, you have to lead the way and then step back and give credit to the one to whom credit is due. Moses and Joshua both knew all of the glory belongs to God, and that is the greatest truth that Moses taught Joshua.
Yesterday’s meeting was a true blessing for me! I got to meet a lot of new ladies and interact with them. So, that is my good report.
Today, in my devotional, I read the blessing that God told Moses and Aaron to speak over the people of Israel as they continued to travel to the Promised Land.
I am praying this promise over anyone who reads it today as well as over the people of Israel as they face a mighty and devious foe. Grace and peace from the Lord is a real blessing.
How long has it been since you took time to think about God’s goodness? I don’t mean some rote prayer or a list of all God’s blessings. I am talking about His goodness, an attribute that I think is generally overlooked.
When Moses requested to see God’s glory, God agreed to show him His goodness, saying he could see God from behind and His goodness would pass before him.
God answers our prayers even when they are unusual requests, particularly if our goal is to know Him better, as Moses desired.
So, I ask you again. Have you reflected on God’s goodness? As you listen to this song, take time to worship our Creator and acknowledge His goodness.
www.bible.com/reading-plans/9114/day/4
www.bible.com/reading-plans/13696/day/2
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 